knocking shop

noun

"knocking-shop" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“knocking shop” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
13
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A brothel.

Corpus desk

Index EN-knocking-shop · knocking shop · English

knocking shop · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 13 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "K" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for knocking shop
PropertyValue
Headwordknocking shop
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters13
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “knocking shop” in English

knocking shopsits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

knocking shop is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A brothel.".

No generated misspelling entries exist for knocking shop in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is knocking shop, spelled K-N-O-C-K-I-N-G- -S-H-O-P.

Definition

  1. 1
    A brothel.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how knocking shop appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. [A]lways reminds me of one of the costlier knocking-shops, you know—'Maison Japonaise' …
  2. Bloody nonsense, "All come together"... Sounds like the motto of a knocking shop in Marrakesh.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "knocking shop"?
"knocking shop" is spelled K-N-O-C-K-I-N-G- -S-H-O-P.
What does "knocking shop" mean?
As a noun, "knocking shop" means: A brothel.
What language does "knocking shop" come from?
"knocking shop" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list